Homeland
Security
Current Nationwide
Threat Level
ELEVATED
Daily Open Source Infrastructure
Report for 28 January 2010
Significant Risk of Terrorist Attacks
For information, click here:
http://www.dhs.gov
Top Stories

According to the Examiner, Toyota announced Tuesday that it is suspending sales of eight
models that are involved in the recall for having accelerator pedals that stick. In addition to
the sales freeze, production at certain Toyota facilities will pause beginning the week of
February 1. (See item 10)

The Associated Press reports that Chattanooga, Tennessee officials fixed a Tuesday
morning power failure at the Moccasin Bend wastewater plant that released 137 million
gallons of sewage and stormwater into the Tennessee River. (See item 31)
Fast Jump Menu
PRODUCTION INDUSTRIES
• Energy
• Chemical
• Nuclear Reactors, Materials and Waste
• Critical Manufacturing
• Defense Industrial Base
• Dams
SUSTENANCE and HEALTH
• Agriculture and Food
• Water
• Public Health and Healthcare
SERVICE INDUSTRIES
• Banking and Finance
• Transportation
• Postal and Shipping
• Information Technology
• Communications
• Commercial Facilities
FEDERAL and STATE
• Government Facilities
• Emergency Services
• National Monuments and Icons
Energy Sector
Current Electricity Sector Threat Alert Levels: Physical: ELEVATED,
Cyber: ELEVATED
Scale: LOW, GUARDED, ELEVATED, HIGH, SEVERE [Source: ISAC for the Electricity Sector (ES-ISAC) [http://www.esisac.com]
1. January 27, Denver Post – (Colorado) Xcel’s Pueblo plant faces stiffer limits on
mercury. Xcel Energy’s new $1 billion Comanche 3 power plant near Pueblo, slated to
come on line February 19, will face stiffer limits on emissions of toxic mercury. But an
attempt to get a federal court order to stop the coal- fired plant until a permit is issued
was rejected on January 26. U.S. district court judge denied a temporary restraining
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order requested by the environmental group WildEarth Guardians. He, however, left
the suit pending. The new permit — which will cut the permissible amount of mercury
by about 25 percent — should be issued in two to six weeks, said the director of the
state Air Quality Control Divisions. Based on analysis of comparable plants, the
director said the new standard was “stringent.” In 2005, the state issued a permit
requiring the plant to capture about 65 percent of the estimated 377 pounds of mercury
the plant could emit annually. Since then, the federal requirements have changed, and
the new permit requires capture of more than 80 percent. “We think we will be able to
meet the permit limits,” an Xcel spokesman said. Mercury can damage the nervous
system, and fish in 20 percent of Colorado’s lakes and reservoirs have been found to
have elevated levels. The 750-megawatt Comanche 3 unit was originally scheduled to
go on line in November, but leaking steam tubes in the boiler have repeatedly delayed
the startup. “We got up to 47 percent capacity last week and found a couple of more
leaks,” the spokesman said.
Source: http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_14274031
2. January 26, Marietta Times – (Ohio) 2 accused of cutting power lines. Two West
Virginia men arrested Friday in Lowell for cutting power lines in order to steal copper
wiring may have done something similar in Meigs County recently, said a Washington
County Sheriff. One man, 37, and another man, 29, both of Chapmanville, West
Virginia, were arrested on January 22 and charged with felony counts of theft,
possession of criminal tools and disrupting public service. They remained in jail on
January 25. The men were allegedly cutting power lines along Ohio 60 in the early
morning hours on January 22 and were found covered in mud, in possession of tree
trimmers and with differing stories about why they were in Lowell, according to
deputies. “They were stealing copper,” said the sheriff. “They had purchased a couple
long-limb tree trimmers and had put tape and things around them to ward off electric
shocks as they cut the lines.” He said the two are suspects in another recent case. “We
knew at least 4,000 feet of wire was taken in Meigs County,” he said. “We believe it’s
attributable to the same people.” An AEP spokesman said the company will have to pay
about $20,000 to replace the lines that were cut. Power was out from 2:32 a.m. on
January 22 until 5:41 a.m. for 72 customers, he said. “We put a temporary fix in place,
but we’ll have to rebuild,” the spokesman said. He said a recent incident in Pomeroy, in
Meigs County, also involved AEP lines.
Source: http://www.mariettatimes.com/page/content.detail/id/519045.html
3. January 26, KRIV 26 Houston – (Texas) Hangman’s noose found at BP plant in
Texas City. BP officials say a hangman’s noose was found at one of their Texas City
refinery units, and they are offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who identifies the
person responsible for it. The noose was discovered last month at a resid hydrotreating
unit, which refines crude oil into fuel, the refinery’s manager wrote in a memo sent to
employees on January 22. The manager continued to write that hangman nooses are
symbols of hatred and violence. BP officials are now investigating the incident, he
wrote. The person behind the noose will be banned from the building, or terminated if
the person is an employee of the company, he wrote.
Source: http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/local/100126-bp-hangmans-noose
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4. January 26, KUSA 9 Denver – (Colorado) Leadville explosion started by leaking fuel
tank. Investigators say a damaged fuel tank started a series of explosions that destroyed
a former Coca-Cola bottling plant on Friday afternoon, sending four people to the
hospital. The first explosion happened just after 3 p.m., setting fire to the building and
collapsing more than half of it in the blast. Firefighters rescued men who were trapped
inside. One had to be airlifted to a Denver hospital, but is expected to be OK. The other
three were treated and released for smoke inhalation. Investigators say the fire started
in one of the businesses housed in the building called Gas Consultants and was an
accident. There is no evidence of criminal activity, according to authorities. Only one
business, Millenium Towing, was not destroyed by the fire. Investigators say
employees at AG Masonry will be able to salvage some of their equipment. Four other
businesses were also in the building. It took crews nearly seven hours to put out the
fire.
Source: http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=131542&catid=346
5. January 25, KSFY 13 Sioux Falls – (South Dakota) Thieves steal $20,000 from power
crew staying at Sioux Falls hotel. Sioux Falls Police say a Mississippi electric crew
who were on their way to North Dakota to help restore power, lost as much as 20thousand dollars in tools, after they were robbed at their hotel. Police say boom trucks
from Chain Electric were sitting in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express on South
Shirley Avenue, when the tools were stolen. No arrests have been made.
Source: http://www.ksfy.com/news/local/82620837.html
6. January 25, Associated Press – (Oregon) 4 Ore. men sentenced for shooting power
lines. Four young Linn County, Oregon, men have been sentenced to five years
probation after pleading guilty to shooting down high-voltage power lines near
McDowell Creek Park in the Lebanon area. They were also ordered to pay more than
$13,000 in restitution to the Bonneville Power Administration for the December 2008
destruction of government property. The U.S. attorney’s office says the men shot a .22
caliber rifle at ceramic insulators attached to a large transmission tower that held
several high voltage power lines supplying electricity to the Lebanon area. The gunfire
shattered three insulators, downing a major electrical line, and causing an 80-minute
power outage to thousands of customers. Sentenced on January 25 in federal court in
Eugene were a 24-year-old, a 19-year-old, a 20-year-old, and a 25-year-old.
Source: http://www.ktvz.com/Global/story.asp?S=11879614
[Return to top]
Chemical Industry Sector
Nothing to report
[Return to top]
Nuclear Reactors, Materials and Waste Sector
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7. January 27, San Luis Obispo Tribune – (California) Diablo Canyon Power Plant
faulted for not testing valves for months. A failure to conduct proper testing caused
two safety valves to be misaligned for more than a year at Diablo Canyon nuclear
power plant. That is the conclusion of a special inspection conducted by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission just after Thanksgiving. The inspectors and other agency
officials met with plant operators Tuesday to discuss the results at a public meeting. In
February 2008 during a previous refueling outage, operators at the plant made several
modifications to valves that would be used to recirculate cooling water lost from the
reactor resulting from a broken pipe or other severe accident, said a senior resident
NRC inspector at the plant. The modifications prevented two valves from being opened
remotely, but this was not discovered at the time because of a lack of testing. The top
executive at the plant said procedures are now in place to ensure that needed testing
will be done. “We take this issue very seriously,” he said.
Source: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/1005099.html
8. January 26, Salt Lake Tribune – (Utah) Public largely critical of depleted uranium
disposal. On Tuesday, some Utahns said radioactive waste does not belong in a
shallow disposal site in western Utah. The Utah Division of Radiation Control’s public
hearing on a proposed regulation for depleted uranium attracted more than three dozen
people. EnergySolutions says it already has buried about 49,000 tons of depleted
uranium at its mile-square disposal site 80 miles west of Salt Lake City. And one of
three controversial shipments (totaling another 11,000 tons) awaits disposal from the
government cleanup of the Savannah River atomic-bomb site in South Carolina. But,
before any more of the nation’s 700,000-ton stockpile of depleted uranium comes to
Utah, state regulators want to finish a regulation to require the Salt Lake City nuclear
waste company to prove the site is right for the waste. The company’s study would
have to show that the state’s safety requirements can be met for at least 10,000 years
and also predict how well the site will hold up when the depleted uranium becomes
most dangerous.
Source: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14275000
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Critical Manufacturing Sector
9. January 27, Reliable Plant Magazine – (Connecticut) Conn. plant faces fines for fire
and explosion hazards. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Fibrelite for 21 alleged violations of
workplace safety standards at its Pawcatuck, Connecticut plant. The manufacturer of
composite manhole covers faces a total of $90,500 in proposed fines, chiefly for
potential fire and explosion hazards. OSHA’s inspection found that combustible
particulate solids, which were generated during trimming and repair operations, were
not collected into an adequately designed dust collection system, were allowed to
accumulate on machinery and surfaces, and were not adequately cleaned up to prevent
such buildup. The combustible material was exposed to several potential ignition
sources, including an LP gas-powered industrial truck, exposed wiring and a spark
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producing tool. Other hazards identified during OSHA’s inspection include improper
storage of waste material saturated with combustible residue, flammable liquid waste
allowed to drip into an open bucket, inadequate precautions to avoid ignition sources
for flammable liquids, a spray booth lacking a sprinkler and adequate grounding, a lack
of an emergency action plan, unguarded power presses, a lack of specific energy
control procedures for various machines, excess air pressure for a cleaning hose and
several electrical hazards. These conditions resulted in Fibrelite being issued 20 serious
citations with $89,500 in fines. The company also has been issued one other-thanserious citation, with a $1,000 fine, for incorrectly recording injuries and illnesses.
Source: http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/22458/Connecticut-plant-faces-fines
10. January 26, Examiner – (International) No sale: Toyota halts sales of eight models,
production affected as well. Toyota announced Tuesday that it is suspending sales of
eight models that are involved in the recall for having accelerator pedals that stick.
Initially Toyota had maintained that improperly installed floor mats were to blame, but
as time has continued on, the company has recently admitted that “Certain accelerator
pedal mechanisms may, in rare instances, mechanically stick in a partially depressed
position or return slowly to the idle position.” One driver of a Toyota Avalon was able
to use information circulated by the media, moving the car’s shifter to and from neutral,
to limp his malfunctioning car to a dealership while it was still experiencing the
acceleration issue. The service manager was able to verify that the floor mat was not
obstructing the accelerator. Toyota now hopes to show that it is taking ownership of the
issue and is acting in the best interest of its customers. Models impacted by the sales
freeze include the following: 2009-2010 RAV4, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix,
2005-2010 Avalon, 2007-2010 Camry, 2010 Highlander, 2007-2010 Tundra, and 20082010 Sequoia. In addition to the sales freeze, production at certain Toyota facilities will
pause beginning the week of February 1. Facilities in question include: Toyota Motor
Manufacturing, Canada (Corolla, Matrix, and RAV4), Toyota Motor Manufacturing,
Indiana (Sequoia and Highlander), Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky – Line 1
(Camry and Avalon), Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (Camry), Toyota Motor
Manufacturing, Texas (Tundra). At this point, Toyota is not indicating how long the
sales and production suspension will last.
Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-10697-California-Autos-Examiner~y2010m1d26No-sale--Toyota-halts-sales-of-eight-models-production-affected-as-well
For more stories, see items 24 and 30
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Defense Industrial Base Sector
11. January 27, Lompoc Record – (California) Missile-defense test scheduled for
VAFB. A missile-defense system test set for Sunday at Vandenberg Air Force Base
will involve a different scenario, this time gauging how the system would react to an
Iran-like attack, officials said. The test, which will occur Sunday afternoon, will
involve a target weapon set to take off from the Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,200 miles
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southwest of Vandenberg. That launch will be followed about 20 minutes later by a
ground-based interceptor launched from an underground silo on north Vandenberg.
During an interview with Reuters news service reporters last month, the Missile
Defense Agency director said the scenario would involve “a class of long-range missile
technology we might expect in the future from a country like Iran, as well as from a
country like North Korea.” The approximately $120 million test marks the first time for
a target to be launched from Kwajalein when the interceptor is launched from
Vandenberg, a spokesman noted. While the complexity of the test is “generally the
same” as any others, this will involve “more of a head on intercept vs. more from the
side as in previous tests,” the spokesman added.
Source: http://www.lompocrecord.com/news/local/military/article_8c15b286-0b1111df-9bd6-001cc4c002e0.html
12. January 27, Space-Travel.com – (National) Alternate space capsule concept passes
tests. A NASA team looking into design concepts for future space capsules has
successfully demonstrated that an all-composite structure is a feasible alternative to
traditional metal capsules for carrying astronauts into space and returning them safely
to Earth. These advanced composite materials promise potential benefits over
traditional metal structures, such as being easily formed into complex shapes that may
be more structurally efficient. A NASA team developed and tested the capsule in a
series of full scale structural tests. The full-scale crew module was pressurized to
design limits while critical interfaces were pulled to simulate the combined loads a
future crew module might see during launch and return to Earth. Follow-on tests
checked for damage tolerance, a question of critical importance for composite
structures. At points along the way, the damaged sites were inspected by nondestructive means, using both infrared thermography and ultrasonic techniques, to
characterize subsurface damage and damage progression. “We are very pleased with
the entire test series. Throughout testing, there were no anomalies and performance
aligned amazingly well with analytical predictions,” the program manager said. The
composite crew module was designed, manufactured, inspected and tested in a
collaborative partnership between NASA and industry. Partners include subject matter
experts from nine of ten NASA centers, the Air Force Research Laboratories, Alcore
Corporation, Alliant Techsystems (ATK), Bally Ribbon Mills, Collier Corporation,
Genesis Engineering, Janicki Industries, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Source: http://www.spacetravel.com/reports/Alternate_Space_Capsule_Concept_Passes_Tests_999.html
[Return to top]
Banking and Finance Sector
13. January 27, IDG News Service – (International) 3D secure online payment system
not secure, researchers say. A widely deployed system intended to reduce on-line
payment card fraud is fraught with security problems, according to University of
Cambridge researchers. The system is called 3-D Secure (3DS) but known better under
the names Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. Implemented and paid for by
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e-commerce vendors, the systems require a person to enter a password or portions of a
password to complete an on-line purchase. As a reward for investing in the systems,
merchants are less liable for fraudulent transactions and are stuck with fewer
chargebacks. But banks such as the Royal Bank of Scotland are now holding
consumers to a higher level of liability if fraudulent transactions occur using either
system, said a security researcher at the University of Cambridge. That is despite what
the researcher and a security engineering professor contend are several flaws with 3DS.
One of their main points is how 3DS is integrated into Web sites during a transaction.
E-Commerce Web sites display 3DS in an iframe, which is a window that brings
content from one Web site into another. The e-commerce Web site connects directly to
a bank, which solicits a person’s password in the iframe. If the password is right, the
transaction is complete. But the researchers argue that since there’s no URL displayed
with the iframe, it’s difficult to tell whether it’s genuine or not. 3DS also allows people
to set their password immediately as they enroll in the system, a process called
“activation during shopping” (ADS). The ADS enrollment will ask for some other
piece of information, such as a birth date, in order to confirm the setting of the
password. That’s a security issue since birth dates are easily obtainable, the researchers
argue.
Source:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/187849/3d_secure_online_payment_sy
stem_not_secure_researchers_say.html
14. January 27, Courthouse News Service – (National) FDIC seeks comments on risk in
employee pay. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is requesting
comments regarding whether it should penalize insured institutions with higher Deposit
Insurance Fund (DIF) assessments when it determines they have risky employee
compensation plans. The FDIC maintains that it is not attempting to eliminate any
particular compensation plan through increased rate assessment but it does recognize
the “broad consensus that some compensation structures misalign incentives and induce
imprudent risk” by rewarding “...employees based on short-term results without full
consideration of the longer-term risks to the firm.” The Federal Deposit Insurance Act
requires that a depository institution’s deposit insurance assessment must be based on
the probability that the DIF will incur a loss, the amount of any loss, and the revenue
needs of the DIF. In 2009 employee compensation plans were cited as a contributing
factor in an institution’s failure in 35 percent of the agency’s investigations. The
agency hopes that using assessment rates will provide incentives for insured institutions
to adopt compensation programs that align employees’ interests with those of the
institution’s other stakeholders. According to the agency, such compensation plans
would limit stock awards to restricted, non-discounted companies that would be
available at intervals over a period of years after an employee meets multi-year
performance goals. The agency also believes that any cash bonuses or stock awards
should be subject to so-called “clawback” provisions in case the performance a bonus is
based on later proves to have been illusory or deceptive.
Source: http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/01/27/Federal_Regulations.htm
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15. January 27, Bank Info Security – (National) Phishing trends: numbers up, corporate
accounts targeted. The latest report from the Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG)
paints a distressing picture for anyone doing transactions online, says the chairman of
the APWG. All phishing numbers are on the rise. The number of unique phishing
reports submitted to APWG for the third quarter of 2009 reached a record 40,621 in
August — 10 percent more than the previous record set in September 2007. “What we
are all seeing is that the criminals are still continuing their attacks and it is getting
worse,” the chairman says. “They’re getting way more sophisticated.” The number of
unique phishing websites reached a record 56,362 in August, displacing the previous
reported high of 55,643 in April 2007. The number of hijacked brands rose to a high of
341, up more than 10 percent from the previous record of 310 in March 2009. What
really worries the chairman is the targeting of corporate bank accounts and high-wealth
customers, as well as the circumvention of authentication technology. “These criminals
are rapidly figuring out how the financial industry works, where there is big money and
large transfers, so they can basically do large wires out of these accounts without
setting off fraud alerts.” The chairman says bluntly, “I think we’re in for a challenging
year.” He’s heard from banks telling him it is a hostile environment. “They’re
scrambling for answers to this because they just can’t be everywhere the hackers are —
even on the users’ computers.”
Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2119
16. January 27, Mississippi Press – (Mississippi) Debit card scam: Local banks want
customers to beware of account draining phone call. Officials with two local banks
warned on January 26 of a debit card scam that could drain a person’s banking account
if they follow the recorded instructions. The senior vice president of security at
Merchants & Marine Bank said several of the bank’s customers reported on January 25
and 26 of receiving a recorded call on their cell phone telling them their Visa debit
bank card is restricted or inactive. The recording tells them that in order to reactivate
the card they should put the card’s account number into the telephone key pad, the vice
president said. The communications director at Hancock Bank said their customers
have reported receiving the same recorded call. The chief of investigations with the
Jackson County Sheriff’s Department said unfortunately as technology advances, bank
account scams tend to evolve. A customer service representative at M&M Bank said
her customers are saying that the calls are coming from two different phone numbers in
Tennessee. The chief of investigations said the calls are most likely coming from a
“drop box” that routes calls several places, making it nearly impossible to trace.
Source: http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-pressnews/2010/01/debit_card_scam_local_banks_want_customers_to_beware.html
17. January 27, St. George Spectrum – (California) Credit union issues warning after
fraud trend in California. Southwest Community Federal Credit Union has issued a
fraud alert to its customers after reports some Visa accounts have been targeted by
thieves in California. “We’ve basically put a block on all transactions out of California.
That includes legitimate transactions, which is the majority of the transactions,” the
chief financial officer said on January 26. An alert posted on the company’s Web site
said the credit union initiated the statewide block after spotting the trend, and credit
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union members who are traveling to California or doing online business with
companies based in California will need to contact Southwest Federal for assistance in
clearing the transaction. Once Southwest Federal is able to authenticate the credit union
member’s identity, the transactions will be allowed. The chief financial officer said the
California blockade will eventually be lifted once the credit union deems it safe to do
so. Skilled thieves are selling and buying black market equipment that allows them to
reproduce debit and credit cards with a great deal of accuracy, he said. The fraud trend
in question is called a “card present transaction.” In other words, the transactions are
not taking place on the Internet where a PIN number would be required to complete the
transaction. Instead, the alleged thieves are presenting the phony cards along with false
identification, and then signing for their purchases.
Source:
http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20100127/NEWS01/1270312/Credit+union+issues
+warning+after+fraud+trend+in+California
18. January 26, Computerworld – (Texas) Bank sues victim of $800,000 cybertheft. A
Texas bank is suing a customer hit by an $800,000 cybertheft incident in a case that
could test the extent to which customers should be held responsible for protecting their
online accounts from compromises. The incident, which was first reported by a blogger
this week, involves Lubbock-based PlainsCapital bank and its customer Hillary
Machinery Inc. of Plano. In November 2009, unknown attackers based in Romania and
Italy initiated a series of unauthorized wire transfers from Hillary’s bank accounts and
depleted it by $801,495. About $600,000 of the amount was later recovered by
PlainsCapital. Hillary demanded that the bank repay it the rest of the stolen money. In a
letter to the bank in December, Hillary claimed that the theft happened only because
PlainsCapital had failed to implement adequate security measures. PlainsCapital
promptly filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
asking the court to certify that its security procedures were “commercially reasonable.”
In its complaint, the bank noted that it had made every effort to recover the stolen
money. The bank sought to absolve itself from blame in the heist by stating that the
unauthorized wire transfer orders had been placed by someone using valid Internet
banking credentials belonging to Hillary Machinery. “PlainsCapital accepted the wire
transfer orders in good faith” and had therefore not breached any of its agreements with
Hillary, the bank said in its complaint. The complaint itself is somewhat unusual in that
it does not seek anything specific from Hillary. Rather, all it asks is for the court to
certify that its systems are reasonably secure.
Source:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9149218/Bank_sues_victim_of_800_000_cyb
ertheft
19. January 26, Oil Express – (Kansas) Thieves empty jobber’s ATM using factory
default pin. A scam involving factory pre-set PIN numbers for ATMs has cost a
Kansas marketer the contents of his cash dispenser in a matter of seconds, Oil Express
reports. The marketer, who never changed the ATM’s original code, said the loss was
preventable. “If we had just read the manual that came with the ATM, we would have
known to change the code, but we didn’t,” he said. Oil Express reports the theft could
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signal a trend, as marketers buy and sell stores and inherit older ATMs. “We would
advise anyone with a legacy ATM that’s more than five years old to check whether the
PINs were ever changed and to make sure that they have the test software installed,”
said a spokesman for ATM manufacturer Triton told the news source. ATM vendors
offer free software that helps prevent ATM thefts. New ATMs contain a PIN that
allows owners to access the machine’s menu. While it does not provide access to the
cash vault, it does allow thieves to change the denomination of the bills that the ATM
dispensed. In the Kansas case, while the manager loaded the ATM with $20 bills, the
thieves, accessing the ATM menu, changed the denomination of the bills to $1. As a
result, the thieves received 20 times the amount that the ATM actually calculated that it
had dispensed. ATM vendors learned of the scam several years ago. As a result,
machines manufactured today force operators to change the PIN before the machine
can be used. However, the older systems are still vulnerable, the reason that Triton and
other vendors produced a free software fix.
Source: http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/News/Daily/Pages/ND0126101.aspx
20. January 26, Associated Press – (Michigan) Burglars take more than $9,000 from
Treasury safe. The State of Michigan is looking at a possible $2 billion deficit in the
fiscal year starting October 1, and the theft of more than $9,000 from a branch office is
not helping. Sterling Heights police tell the Detroit Free Press that employees reporting
to work on January 25 discovered the theft. It is believed to have occurred between
4:30 p.m. on January 23 and 6:30 a.m. January 25. Police say the thieves broke a
window and removed part of a wall to get into a room where a safe was forced open. A
Treasury spokesman says the field office and collection staffers work at the suburban
Detroit location, where back taxes, state agency debt and other payments can be made.
He says the office will remain closed until repairs are completed, possibly by the end of
the week.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-treasuryofficeth,0,168115.story
21. January 26, Queens Courier – (New York) Phony bomb bank robberies. Two recent
bank robberies have taken advantage of terrorism fears in northeast Queens, and police
want to defuse the situation. On January 22 a “black male, 5 feet 11 inches tall,
weighing approximately 200 pounds,” according to the NYPD, entered the Queens
County Savings Bank at 247-53 Jamaica Avenue in Bellerose shortly before 9 a.m.
Police say the man, dressed in black shoes and a black jacket, told bank employees he
wanted to open an account. Once he had the manager’s attention, cops say he said he
had a bomb in his bag, and warned them “Don’t notify anyone.” He fled the bank with
an undisclosed amount of cash, heading westbound on Jamaica Avenue. Police sources
told The Queens Courier that on January 25, an unidentified black male, between 6 feet
and 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighing “about 180 pounds,” entered the Queens County
Savings Bank at 224-04 Union Turnpike in Hollis Hills shortly before noon on. The
man, who was wearing blue pants, a blue trench coat and black sneakers, also produced
what appeared to be a bomb — but also turned out to be four traffic flares taped
together with a common electronic accessory, police sources said. The thief was last
seen headed south on Springfield Boulevard, with approximately $8,300 in cash,
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according to police sources.
Source:
http://www.queenscourier.com/articles/2010/01/26/news/regional/northeast/doc4b5f7a
16df89d736102907.txt
22. January 26, eCredit Daily – (International) Report: ‘Credit card twitter’ ripe for
phishing attacks. Blippy, the ‘Twitter’ for credit card users that went live this month,
could be targeted by cyber criminals that could use the personal information posted on
the social media site to create effective phishing emails, according to a prominent cyber
security firm. Blippy invites users to discuss what they are buying primarily by
attaching a credit or debit card to the service. Postings reveal what they purchased, the
amount and the retailer, whether online or in-store. ATM withdrawal amounts are also
recorded. The site has privacy safeguards in place, but there is enough revealed in the
postings to help cyber fraudsters construct phishing schemes aimed at Blippy users,
according to Cyveillance, a provider of online security solutions to protect
organizations from cyber attacks, including phishing and malware. The firm has done
business with a majority of Fortune 500 companies. “From a cyber criminal’s point of
view, Blippy currently offers great information to construct a highly-targeted spear
phishing attack,” Cyveillance writes on its cyber intelligence blog.
Source: http://ecreditdaily.com/2010/01/report-credit-card-twitter-ripe-phishingattacks/
23. January 26, Bank Info Security – (Texas) ATM Fraud: Skimming scheme nets
$200,000 in Texas. Word on the street is that ATM skimming is now the most
profitable crime, say Houston, Texas police who arrested two men accused of putting a
skimming device on a local bank’s ATM. A Houston police lieutenant says that the
suspects were caught putting the device on an ATM in a bank on Montrose Boulevard,
near the University of St. Thomas on January 19. This incident is another example of
increased ATM-related crimes. Security experts have predicted that ATM fraud will
increase in 2010. The lieutenant, who works in the police department’s financial crimes
division, says the police watched as the suspects sat across the street in a black Cadillac
Escalade, monitoring the ATM through binoculars. Once they saw customers pull up,
the suspects moved in closer and turned on their wireless camera. The camera let them
see the customers as they entered their banking PIN into the ATM’s keypad. One
Houston area bank reports it lost more than $200,000 because of the skimming device,
police say. “We have had suspects tell us that the word among criminals on the street is
that skimming is a much more profitable crime to commit, not only because the amount
of money they are able to steal very quickly, but also because it is less likely that they
will be detected,” the lieutenant explained.
Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2115
[Return to top]
Transportation Sector
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24. January 28, Wall Street Journal – (International) FAA seeks checks of pilot oxygen
systems on Boeing jets. U.S. aviation regulators have ordered inspections of
emergency cockpit oxygen systems on roughly 1,300 Boeing jetliners operated by U.S.
carriers, more than a decade after the manufacturer first warned airlines that certain
parts posed potential fire hazards. Covering three separate Boeing models, from
domestic workhorse 737 aircraft to the longest-range international 747 jumbo jets, rules
proposed by the Federal Aviation Administration call for checks of some cockpit
oxygen hoses that can catch fire if there is a short circuit in a nearby electrical panel.
The proposed inspections and fixes, released at the end of last week, are expected to be
embraced by foreign regulators. Starting more than a decade ago, Boeing received
reports of problems caused by current flowing through part of the stowage box for pilot
oxygen masks, which eventually can result in a hose melting or burning. The initial
incident was reported on a Boeing 757 in 1997. In response, the company in 1999
issued its first round safety bulletins covering 757s and three other aircraft models,
according to a Boeing spokeswoman. Boeing urged inspections of low-pressure oxygen
hoses and, if necessary, replacing them with new parts that wouldn’t conduct
electricity. The work was to be completed “at the earliest opportunity when manpower,
material and facilities are available.” Complying with manufacturer bulletins is
voluntary. The issue of hazardous hoses moved back into the spotlight in June 2008,
when an Airborne Express Boeing 767 cargo plane caught fire while preparing to push
back from a gate at San Francisco International Airport. The fire burned a hole through
the top of fuselage before it was extinguished, but the crew escaped without injury. On
Friday, the FAA issued separate but identical proposed safety directives for 737s, 747s
and 767s. It had previously issued essentially the same proposals covering more than
480 Boeing 757s in September 2009.
Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703906204575028171518328544.htm
l?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop
25. January 27, Associated Press – (California) Planes get too close on approach to
LAX. Federal Aviation Administration officials say an error by an air traffic controller
allowed a commuter plane to get too close to a Boeing 767 on approach to Los Angeles
International Airport last week. An FAA spokesman said Tuesday that an American
Eagle Embraer E135 came within three miles of the tail of the Chilean-based LAN
Airlines plane on January 19 while flying at about 7,000 feet. Pilots are required to
maintain five miles of separation to avoid wake turbulence that can send smaller planes
out of control. A controllers union spokesman told San Diego’s KGTV that controllers
are overworked and understaffed. The spokesman called the error “serious” but said it
was not caused by understaffing and there was no imminent danger to the smaller
plane.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9671861
26. January 27, Wall Street Journal – (National) FAA cites progress in drive to improve
commuter airline safety. Federal aviation regulators said new government and
industry initiatives have succeeded in lifting the overall safety of U.S. commuter
airlines. In a report released Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said the
- 12 -
improvements stem in part from closer government oversight of pilot training and from
moves by carriers to better identify and track weak pilots. The report follows a wideranging FAA effort to plug numerous safety gaps exposed by the February 2009 crash
of a Colgan Air turboprop near Buffalo, N.Y., which killed 50 people. The high-profile
crash sparked public and congressional criticism of widespread problems at many
commuter airlines, such as inadequate pilot training, low salaries and lack of cockpit
discipline. Commuter carriers, which account for roughly half of all U.S. commercial
flights, contract to carry passengers on behalf of mainline carriers on routes that are not
served by larger jets. The report gives generally high grades to most airlines, along with
FAA inspectors and managers in responding to the agency’s call last June to step up
commuter safety. The safety improvements range from more-focused government
surveillance of pilot training to better tracking of new pilots’ performance. The report
also lays out progress FAA officials believe the industry has made in collecting and
analyzing data from airline incidents and mishaps. The FAA’s campaign to improve
safety focused on the qualifications, training and flight-time limits of commuter crews.
Many commuter pilots were hired on with minimal levels of experience at the controls.
The campaign also sought to encourage larger airlines to share safety data and “best
practices” with their commuter partners. One problem the FAA was particularly
concerned about was an apparent lack of cockpit discipline among some commuter
pilots. The crew of the Colgan plane that crashed last year, for example, failed to
properly follow checklists and engaged in idle chatter just moments before the crash.
The report says the FAA will continue to prod pilot unions to develop new guidelines
to “clearly articulate the aviation community’s expectations for professional behavior”
on flight decks.
Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703410004575028423631473944.htm
l?mod=googlenews_wsj
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Postal and Shipping Sector
27. January 27, News 10 Now – (New York) White powder mailed to Bishop Ludden
High School. When the Bishop Ludden school’s principal in Geddes, New York
opened a standard white envelope addressed to the school Monday morning, he never
expected he would have to call the authorities. “Our principal received a letter in the
mail that upon opening it, contained a suspicious white substance,” said the
superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Syracuse. “At that time, he immediately
called upon his assistant principal. They kicked the emergency plan into place. They
called the Geddes police and involved the police immediately.” A Geddes police
investigator says the letter was handwritten. But what it said can not be revealed at this
time. The powder it was covered in, unknown. The superintendent says the principal
was the only one that came into contact with the envelope and that students were never
in danger. “The ventilation in this particular part of the building was off. Our buildings
are all steam heat so there is no ventilation running in the wintertime. There’s no forced
air. So that’s why we knew that students were not in danger,” he said. Geddes Police
- 13 -
are working with postal inspectors and the FBI. They say they do not want to reveal too
many details at this time as to avoid the likes of a copy cat.
Source: http://news10now.com/watertown-north-news-1052content/top_stories/494252/suspicious-powder-sent-to-bishop-ludden-hs
[Return to top]
Agriculture and Food Sector
28. January 27, Associated Press – (National) Survey: Honeybee colony collapse losses
declining. Fewer beekeepers are reporting evidence of a mysterious ailment that had
been decimating the U.S. honeybee population. But losses due to colony collapse
disorder remain high enough to keep beekeepers on edge, and longtime stresses on bees
such as starvation and poor weather add to the burden. A survey of beekeepers for the
January issue of the Journal of Apicultural Research found that the percentage of
operations reporting having lost colonies but without dead bees in the hives — a
symptom of colony collapse disorder, or CCD — decreased to 26 percent last winter,
compared to 38 percent the previous season and 36 percent the season before that.
Also, the percentage of colonies that died that displayed the CCD symptom was 36
percent last winter, down from 60 percent three winters ago, the survey found. The
earliest reports of CCD date to 2004, and scientists still are trying to find a cause.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/27/us/AP-US-Farm-SceneDisappearing-Bees.html?_r=2
29. January 26, CBS News – (National) Lab confirms Salmonella strain in outbreak. A
strain of Salmonella has been linked to an outbreak that made 189 people sick in 49
states Monday during testing at the University of Iowa. Thirty-five people have been
hospitalized from the strain since July, but no deaths have been reported. The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the
Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service are investigating the
outbreak. According to the University of Iowa, on Saturday, Daniele International
recalled more than 1.2 million pounds of its ready-to-eat sausage products because of a
possible salmonella contamination. The Iowa Department of Public Health investigated
a case of salmonella poisoning in the state and found leftover sausage in the patient’s
home and sent the meat to the University of Iowa’s Hygienic Laboratory for testing.
Using DNA fingerprinting, the lab confirmed the sausage matched the same strain as
the national outbreak.
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/26/health/main6144342.shtml
30. January 26, Bloomberg – (International) Kraft, GM shut Venezuela plants to dodge
blackouts. Kraft Foods Inc. and a Coca-Cola Co. bottler are among international
companies in Venezuela that will close plants for one day a week to escape rolling
blackouts amid the worst power crisis in six years. The companies and other users are
trying to cut electricity use by 20 percent while escaping the blackouts that hurt output
and damaged equipment in the manufacturing center of Valencia, the head of the
energy commission at the Industrial Chamber of Commerce of Carabobo state said. The
- 14 -
chamber Monday agreed with Corpoelec, the state power company, to cease operations
for one day a week in return for an end to the rolling blackouts of as much as five hours
a day. Companies had lengthened their hours to make up for the blackouts, eliminating
the energy savings, the head of the energy commission said Tuesday. Coca Cola Femsa
SAB, which bottles Coca Cola drinks, Chrysler Group LLC and Motors Liquidation
Co., which control the country’s biggest carmaker, General Motors Venezuela, and
Owens- Illinois Inc., the world’s largest maker of glass containers, are among the 200
companies that will close plants, said the president of the chamber of commerce. The
president of Ford Motor Co.’s local unit said his company would not be affected by the
weekly closures because it produces 80 percent of its own power. He had said Ford was
one of the companies to be included in the agreement. “We’re making process
adjustments to keep from being affected,” he said. The company was able to keep
producing through two-hour unscheduled blackouts last week, and is preparing for the
possibility of more frequent outages, he said. Kraft, maker of mayonnaise, Oreo
cookies and Velveeta processed cheese, has “been able to adapt to the current schedule
(one day off per week) such that there has been no impact on production,” a company
spokesman said.
Source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-26/kraft-coca-cola-ford-shutvenezuela-plants-to-escape-blackout.html
[Return to top]
Water Sector
31. January 27, Associated Press – (Tennessee) Chattanooga sewage leak into Tennessee
River fixed after 137 million gallons released. Chattanooga officials fixed a
wastewater plant power failure that released 137 million gallons of sewage and
stormwater into the Tennessee River. A city spokesman said workers restored the
Moccasin Bend treatment plant to full capacity about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday and
stopped the overflows caused by the Tuesday morning power outage that shut down the
plant’s pumping system. He said the 137 million gallons of untreated sewage and storm
water waste released into the river represents less than 1 percent of the total flow
released from TVA’s Chickamauga Dam. An estimated 80 billion gallons of water
flowed through the dam Tuesday. He said an overflow area under the Market Street
Bridge was sanitized Wednesday morning.
Source: http://www.whnt.com/news/sns-ap-tn--river-sewage,0,6227072.story
32. January 27, Roanoke Times – (Virginia) Pulaski County’s water plant shut
down. Schools distributed bottled water to students and officials encouraged
households and businesses to conserve Tuesday after flooding at Claytor Lake shut
down Pulaski County’s water treatment plant in Virginia. Officials warned residents
outside the town of Pulaski that the public water supply could run out while the plant
was offline. Late Tuesday, the Pulaski County Public Service Authority issued a boil
order for any home that had lost service or water pressure on Tuesday. “Low pressure
or dewatered lines and tanks may allow contaminated water to enter the distribution
system,” the notice said. The recommendation is to boil water through Thursday as a
- 15 -
precaution. The first outages were reported late Tuesday afternoon in Dublin and
Draper. Sediment and debris from widespread flooding caused most of the problems,
the assistant county administrator said. Some of the raw water coming into the plant in
Draper was “almost mud. If we try to run it, it could damage the equipment,” he said.
About 4,500 business and residential customers across the county could be affected by
the shutdown. Under normal conditions, the plant treats and distributes about 2 million
gallons of water per day, he said. Town of Pulaski residents have a separate water
source and were not affected. Most Snowville residents rely on well water. Public
Service Authority employees were working to get the system back up and hoping water
conditions in the lake will improve soon, he said. County officials ordered bottled water
to be delivered Tuesday and expected to soon set up distribution sites for residential
customers in need of drinking water, he said. Residents were asked to delay activities
that would use a large volume of water, such as doing laundry and washing cars.
Source: http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/wb/234421
33. January 27, Wheeling News-Register – (West Virginia) Rising water calls attention to
broken gauge at plant. A broken gauge at the Wheeling Water Treatment Plant has
made it harder for local officials to get an accurate reading of the level of the Ohio
River. The gauge was reported as broken earlier this week by the National Weather
Service (NWS) after officials began focusing on rising water levels in the Ohio Valley.
“Those gauges are owned by the U.S. Geological Survey, so we were not really sure
what the problem was,” a representative for the NWS said. He said that forecasters
noticed the gauge was stuck at around 15 feet, about half of the actual river level. The
gauge was also reported broken to the Ohio County Emergency Management director
who said that he was not sure when the USGS would be able to fix it. Though the
gauge had been reported as broken, a lead hydrolic technician for the West Virginia
Water Science Center said he was not aware of the problem. He did say he would be
contacting a technician and that the issue would be taken care of soon. He said a
number of things could cause the gauge to fail, including blockages such as logs and
other debris or low temperatures freezing the gauge. In the meantime, local officials
have had to measure the water manually. As of Tuesday afternoon, the river was
predicted to crest around 35.5 feet, just under the 36-foot flood stage for the area and a
full foot off of the 36.6 feet needed to flood Wheeling Island, according to the National
Weather Service.
Source: http://www.news-register.net/page/content.detail/id/533696.html?nav=510
34. January 26, Greenwood Commonwealth – (Mississippi) Collapsed manhole puts
crews to test. A collapsed manhole bordering the Yazoo River in North Greenwood,
Mississippi, has had city crews scrambling. “They’ve been working on it since last
night,” the mayor said. The mayor said the elevated manhole, which is near Claiborne
Avenue and Virginia Street, is part of the city’s sanitary sewer line. On January 26,
river water was rushing into the open sewer line. She said for now, the collapse poses
no threat to residents in North Greenwood. The director of the Department of Public
Works said the situation will require the construction of a temporary dam so that crews
can stop the flow of river water and determine the extent of the sewer line problem.
Such a dam will have to be built by a private contractor since the city does not have the
- 16 -
equipment necessary to undertake that kind of specialized work. There are other
considerations that must be taken into account prior to attempting repairs, such as
locating and avoiding all underground cables and pipelines that might be in the vicinity
of the sewer line, he said. Herring said he had no exact idea as to the diameter of the
sewer line in question but that the line connects to Pumping Station No. 1.
Source:
http://gwcommonwealth.com/articles/2010/01/26/news/top_stories/01262010news05.tx
t
35. January 26, KNSD 7 San Diego – (California) Pump station blamed for flooding
from storms. A pumping station in Mission Beach, California, may have been the
reason for much of the flooding during last week’s storms. On Monday, San Diego City
Council members issued a request for emergency repairs on the pump station located
on Santa Clara Place in Mission Beach. Many houses and businesses were damaged
because of the station’s inablilty to pump enough water during last week’s storms. “I
want staff to provide an immediate solution for this rain in terms of trying to increase
the pumping capacity here — and from a long term perspective what the city needs to
do to redesign this so it works,” the council president pro tem said. A time frame for
repairs has not yet been determined. A long term solution to increase the pumping
capacity is still being worked on by the city.
Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-beat/Pump-Station-Blamed-ForFlooding-From-Storms-82661552.html
36. January 26, Rapid City Journal – (North Dakota; South Dakota) Thousands without
water after storm. The chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, declared a state
of emergency on the sprawling reservation Tuesday. Damage from recent ice storms
and strong winds left the reservation without power and water. The Tri-County/Mni
Waste Water System at Eagle Butte is operated by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.
The system supplies water to approximately 14,000 people on the Cheyenne Indian
Reservation, the communities of Faith, Isabel and Dupree, and rural portions of Dewey,
Ziebach, and Meade counties. Tri-County’s water treatment plant lost power one week
ago when power lines started falling after days of fog and icing, according to the
manager. With approximately four million gallons of water held in storage reservoirs,
the system had enough capacity to continue operating for a few days. On January 22,
generators were moved to the water system’s alternate pumping site on the Cheyenne
River. It was not feasible to take generators 20 miles to the new pumping station on the
Oahe Reservoir. As the power failures spread, a generator was used to operate the
water treatment plant 20 miles south of Eagle Butte, but the plant was not operating at
capacity. Without water to fill storage reservoirs, the system’s users gradually started
drawing down those reserves. On Sunday night, generator and filter problems at the
treatment plant caused about 800,000 gallons of water to flood the treatment plant. The
water was discovered Monday morning. Employees spent Monday pumping water out
of the plant and assessing the damage. On Tuesday several electric motors were in
Pierre being rebuilt. The damage to the plant’s computerized equipment was also being
assessed. If the plant is operational by Friday, only the town of Eagle Butte will have
water service. The manager is reluctant to predict when system will be fully
- 17 -
operational.
Source: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_95604146-0ab5-11df-88a7001cc4c03286.html
37. January 25, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – (Guam) EPA penalizes Guam
Waterworks Authority additional $57,000 for failing to complete water tank
assessment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today penalized the Guam
Waterworks Authority (GWA) $57,000 for failing to fully comply with a stipulated
order to make improvements to its drinking water and wastewater systems. GWA was
penalized for the continued failure to meet a December 31, 2008 deadline for
completing a condition assessment to determine the structural stability and soundness
of steel tank water reservoirs that need immediate assessment, and for failure to
complete a condition assessment of the remaining steel tank water reservoirs by
December 31, 2009. Some of the tanks have severely corroded exterior walls, roofs, or
valves, or are missing tank parts.
Source:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/f4148f
0ea72c588e852576b70002cfd2!OpenDocument
[Return to top]
Public Health and Healthcare Sector
38. January 26, Kansas City Star – (National) U.S. gets ‘F’ in preparation for threat of
biological terrorism, report concludes. The United States has failed to adequately
prepare for the threat of biological terrorism, a report concluded Tuesday. The
Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and
Terrorism gave the government an “F” for bioweapon preparedness. It said the blame
could be shared among Democratic and Republican administrations and Congress. The
White House does not agree with the commission’s failing grade, an unnamed source
told the Associated Press. A report issued Monday by Harvard University said al-Qaida
was still pursuing biological, chemical, and nuclear weaponry. The commission said
this country’s response to the H1N1 flu showed that authorities were not ready for a
bioterror attack. Preventing a bioterror attack is difficult, so the best deterrent is a
strong response mechanism, the report said. The commission did find progress in some
of the 17 areas studied. It gave the government above-average grades for openness of
public communications regarding weapons of mass destruction, and for the President’s
efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. But it gave a “D+” to the
government’s efforts to regulate “high containment” laboratories that study dangerous
pathogens.
Source: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/1710371.html
39. January 26, My Web Times – (Illinois) Phone threat locks down Ottawa Regional
Hospital. A threatening telephone call to Ottawa Regional Hospital from a 42-year-old
man allegedly distraught over a teddy bear gift locked down the medical facility for an
undisclosed period Monday night. According to police reports the Ottawa man
- 18 -
identified himself to a staff nurse, who supposedly recognized his voice from previous
contacts, and threatened to “shoot up the place.” Police were then notified of the phone
threat at 8:35 p.m. A lockdown of the building was immediately organized by an offduty Ottawa police employee working as a night security officer in accordance with
standard procedure at the medical facility. Ottawa police, assisted by La Salle County
Sheriff’s officers, rushed to the caller’s home northwest of the city where they found
the man “distraught, angry and disoriented.” Allegedly, the man said he was upset
about a stuffed teddy bear of his that was given by a relative to another relative who
was a patient at the hospital. Authorities said the man had ingested an unknown
quantity of prescription medications earlier in the day and, because of his agitated
condition, had to be transported by Ottawa emergency personnel to the very hospital he
had just threatened. A spokesperson for the La Salle County State’s Attorney’s Office
said the incident is under review and charges against the man may be filed in the near
future. A spokeswoman with Ottawa Regional Hospital declined to comment.
Source: http://mywebtimes.com/archives/ottawa/display.php?id=396427
40. January 26, Homeland Security Today – (National) Hospital surge capacity for mass
casualties still a problem. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Monday
issued an updated report, “State Efforts to Plan for Medical Surge Could Benefit from
Shared Guidance for Allocating Scarce Medical Resources,” that says many hospitals
in the United States are unprepared for treating the overwhelming “surge” of victims
from a large scale mass casualty event. GAO said that “based on a review of state
emergency preparedness documents and interviews with 20 state emergency
preparedness officials...many states had made efforts related to three of the four key
components of medical surge that GAO had identified — increasing hospital capacity,
identifying alternate care sites, and registering medical volunteers, but fewer had
implemented the fourth: planning for altering established standards of care. More than
half of the 50 states had met or were close to meeting the criteria for the five medicalsurge-related sentinel indicators for hospital capacity reported in the Hospital
Preparedness Program’s 2006 midyear progress reports. In a 20-state review, GAO
found the following. All 20 were developing bed reporting systems and most were
coordinating with military and veterans hospitals to expand hospital capacity. Eighteen
were selecting various facilities for alternate care sites. Fifteen had begun electronic
registering of medical volunteers, and fewer of the states — 7 of the 20 — were
planning for altered standards of medical care to be used in response to a mass casualty
event.” State officials in GAO’s 20-state review “reported that they faced challenges
relating to all four key components in preparing for medical surge,” GAO stated.
Source: http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/11933/149/
41. January 26, CNN – (International) FDA recalls more than 2 million needles used in
port implants. Millions of needles used in ports implanted under the skin of
chronically ill patients are being voluntarily recalled, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday. More than 2 million Huber needles,
manufactured by Nipro Medical Corp. in Japan and distributed by Exelint International
Corp., headquartered in Los Angeles, California, are affected. Huber needles are used
primarily in hospitals and clinics — and in some instances by patients receiving long-
- 19 -
term treatment at home — to draw blood or to inject medicine, other nutritional
solutions or blood products. They are used with ports, which are small medical
appliances placed under the skin. The Class 1 recall — denoting that the FDA considers
the product to be of the highest risk — involves Exel/Exelint Huber needles,
Exel/Exelint Huber Infusion Sets and Exel/Exelint “Securetouch+” Safety Huber
Infusion Sets. Approximately 6 million Huber needles are used each year in the United
States. The agency determined that 60 to 70 percent of Exelint’s needles “cored,” or cut
slivers of silicone, when inserted into ports, raising the possibility of the silicone slivers
entering the veins, damaging the port itself or harming the surrounding tissue. There
have been reports of leakage, the FDA said, but none of silicone entering the vascular
system as a result of the needles. It said anyone using the products should stop
immediately and return any unused needles to Exelint. Investigations are being done of
needles from 20 companies, and 10 of those investigations have been completed, the
agency said. So far, no other products have been recalled. The FDA said it has sent
letters to all Huber manufacturers asking them to address any design or manufacturing
problems. There was no immediate public comment from Exelint.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/26/needles.recall/?hpt=T2
[Return to top]
Government Facilities Sector
42. January 27, Associated Press – (Louisiana) 4 men accused of phone plot make court
appearance. Three of four men charged with infiltrating the New Orleans office of a
Democratic U.S. Senator returned to court today for private appointments in the pretrial
services department. Three of the suspects carried suitcases and declined comment.
Federal authorities said 2 of the men posed as telephone workers wearing hard hats,
tool belts and fluorescent vests when they walked into the senator’s office inside a
federal building in New Orleans on Monday. The other two are accused of helping to
organize the plan. The most well-known of the suspects is a 25-year-old whose hiddencamera expose posing as a pimp with his prostitute infuriated the liberal group
ACORN.
Source: http://www.wdam.com/Global/story.asp?S=11887630
43. January 26, The Register – (International) Defects in e-passports allow real-time
tracking. Computer scientists in Britain have uncovered weaknesses in electronic
passports issued by the US, UK, and some 50 other countries that allow attackers to
trace the movements of individuals as they enter or exit buildings. The so-called
traceability attack is the only exploit of an e-passport that allows attackers to remotely
track a given credential in real time without first knowing the cryptographic keys that
protect it, the scientists from University of Birmingham said. What’s more, RFID, or
radio-frequency identification, data in the passports cannot be turned off, making the
threat persistent unless the holder shields the government-mandated identity document
in a special pouch. “A traceability attack does not lead to the compromise of all data on
the tag, but it does pose a very real threat to the privacy of anyone that carries such a
device,” the authors wrote. “Assuming that the target carried their passport on them, an
- 20 -
attacker could place a device in a doorway that would detect when the target entered or
left a building.” To exploit the weakness, attackers would need to observe the targeted
passport as it interacted with an authorized RFID reader at a border crossing or other
official location. They could then build a special device that detects the credential each
time it comes into range. The scientists estimated the device could have a reach of
about 20 inches. “This would make it easy to eavesdrop on the required message from
someone as they used their passport at, for instance, a customs post,” the authors wrote.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/26/epassport_rfid_weakness/
For another story, see item 27
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Emergency Services Sector
44. January 27, Associated Press – (Florida) Florida teens escape juvenile program in
stolen fire truck. Two teens fled from a juvenile diversion program at a Florida Keys
campground in a stolen firetruck. The teens have been arrested and charged with grand
theft auto. The truck belonged to the chief of the Big Pine Key Fire Department.
Authorities say a Camp Sawyer counselor called the Monroe County sheriff’s office
Monday morning to report that the teens were missing from the site on West
Summerland Key. Deputies then learned of the missing fire truck. The boys were
caught 90 miles away. A Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman says she can remember of
police cars being stolen, but this is the first case of a stolen firetruck.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584051,00.html
45. January 26, WXIX 19 Cincinnati – (Ohio) Cincinnati police officers beginning to
wear miniature cameras. Cincinnati Police officers are now field testing wearable
clip-on video cameras. The device is called AXON. It is described as an on-officer
tactical computer and an audio-video recorder that captures incidents from the officer’s
perspective. The AXON (which stands for Autonomous eXtended on-Officer Network)
is a small, lightweight headset that fits into an officer’s ear and aims wherever he or she
looks. Besides recording up to 10.5 hours of video, it can serve as an earpiece for police
radios. “This is an additional piece of evidence that the officers can use throughout the
course of his or her duties,” said a spokesman for Taser Inc. The camera is designed to
enable full audio-video recording from a head camera the size and weight of a standard
Bluetooth headset and transfer it securely to a computer hard drive without
interference. “It helps me to remember an incident under stress where I might not
remember what I did or what I said and it will be right there for everybody to view
including myself,” said a Cincinnati police officer. The individual systems costs about
$1500.
Source: http://www.fox19.com/global/story.asp?s=11879054
46. January 25, Terre Haute Tribune-Star – (Indiana) Power outage knocks out Vigo 911
central dispatch for about an hour. A power outage in Terre Haute, Indiana shut
down electrical service at Vigo County central dispatch for approximately an hour
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Monday night. At least one power transformer apparently exploded Monday evening,
cutting power to the Sheriff’s Department, where central dispatch is housed, the sheriff
said. A backup generator kicked on and powered most of the lights and other
equipment at the jail, “but it did not repower 911,” he said. There is also a backup
battery system, “but, for some reason, it failed to kick on,” he said. Despite the outage,
911 calls were handled by Indiana State University police, the sheriff said. “Our
rollover system worked,” he assured. Regular power was restored to 911 about 9:20
p.m. The timing of the power outage was especially unfortunate since ice and snow had
made roads potentially hazardous in the Terre Haute area Monday night. Several
property damage accidents were being reported, he said.
Source: http://www.tribstar.com/news/local_story_025215855.html
[Return to top]
Information Technology Sector
47. January 27, V3.co.uk – (International) TechCrunch hacked twice in 24
hours. Security experts are warning webmasters to be on their guard, after popular
technology blog TechCrunch was hacked for the second time in 24 hours. Users were
greeted this time with a four-letter tirade against the site’s founder. The first hack
happened at around 6am GMT on January 26, when visitors saw a blank page with a
brief message and a link to a site containing links to “adult and pirated material”,
according to a Sophos senior technology consultant. Later that morning the site posted
a brief story about the hack. “At this point we are still gathering information on how the
site was compromised, and will update this post with additional information,” it said.
However, the consultant said in a blog post that the site was compromised again within
24 hours, and that the hackers left another message. “So [name of TechCrunch
founder], how much did all the media coverage yesterday brought you in trough the
welcome.html ad you forced people to? What a [expletive] retarded move was that you
[expletive]. You should be thanking me and [expletive] on my [expletive] for not
deleting everyone on the box and publishing the mysql, if that’s what you want O.K, I
can do that,” the message read. According to the consultant, the message also included
a link to a web site “hosting links to hardcore file-sharing torrents”. TechCrunch has
yet to elaborate on how the hackers managed to deface its site.
Source: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2256848/techcrunch-hacked-again
48. January 27, IDG News Service – (International) PlayStation 3 hack released
online. Days after announcing he had managed to hack Sony’s PlayStation 3 console to
run his own software, the hardware hacker has released the exploit online. The hacker,
who is best known for cracking Apple’s iPhone, said in a blog posting that he had
decided to release the exploit to see what others could do with it and because he wanted
to move on to other work. With the release of the exploit online many programmers
will likely start to examine the PlayStation 3 for ways to get deeper into the system. For
some the prime goal will be to crack the encryption system that ensures illegally copied
games cannot be played on the console while others will likely be motivated by the
technical challenge of running their own software on the powerful PlayStation 3
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platform. The exploit the hacker has found works with the PlayStation 3’s OtherOS
feature that allows a second operating system to be installed on the machine. This
feature was discontinued on newer model machines, the so-called “PS3 Slim” consoles.
Sony is also examining the code. Its Tokyo-based gaming unit, Sony Computer
Entertainment, said it is looking into the claims made by the hacker and declined to
comment until it has finished its investigation.
Source:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9149398/PlayStation_3_hack_released_online
49. January 27, SC Magazine – (International) The popularity of Apple devices is
attracting malware, according to a report from Intego. Amid speculation that Apple
is set to introduce its tablet device on January 28 at a press event in California, a
discussion of the security implications will not likely be mentioned. While the device is
already being touted as a game-changer in the publishing industry, reportedly
introducing a new digital platform with a ten-inch screen for the delivery of newspaper
and magazine content, what is likely to follow within months of the debut, if history is
any precedent, is a new wave of malware targeting the device. Users tuning in for their
daily news feed or perusing copies of their favourite magazines may become victims of
new iterations of malware likely intended to steal their passwords and personal
information to then be offered for sale in the nether regions of cyberspace. This
scenario echoes Apple’s January 2009 introduction of new software at Macworld Expo,
a forum the company traditionally uses to roll-out new products and to announce
updates to existing ones. According to an annual report, The Year in Mac Security from
Intego, following the release of an update to Apple’s iWork 2009 suite of software,
malware writers immediately introduced the iServices Trojan Horse as a supplement
hidden inside an installer available to users downloading bootlegged versions from
BitTorrent and other grey and black market distributors of pirated software. The Intego
report stated that following up on the successful implementation, the same cyber gang
issued the next version of their malware planted in Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Mac,
again distributed via BitTorrent. In April, Intego detected proof-of-concept malware,
Tored.A, that was created in RealBasic code. This self-contained application tried to
copy itself to root folders on Macs and then siphoned email addresses from the Mac
utility address book and sent emails containing the malware. The virus was also
capable of linking the user machine to a botnet and recording keystrokes.
Source: http://www.scmagazineuk.com/the-popularity-of-apple-devices-is-attractingmalware-according-to-a-report-from-intego/article/162463/
50. January 27, The Register – (International) Google Toolbar caught tracking users
when ‘disabled’. Google has updated its browser toolbar after the application was
caught tracking urls even when specifically “disabled” by the user. In a January 25 blog
post, a Harvard professor and noted Google critic provided video evidence of the
Google toolbar transmitting data back to the Mountain View Chocolate Factory after he
chose to disable the application in the browser window he was currently using. The
Google toolbar offers two disable options: one is meant to disable the toolbar
“permanently,” and the other is meant to disable the app “only for this window.” In a
statement passed to The Register, Google has acknowledged the bug. According to the
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statement, the bug affects Google Toolbar versions 6.3.911.1819 through 6.4.1311.42
for Internet Explorer. An update that fixes the bug is now available here, and the
company intends to automatically update users’ toolbars sometime today. The
statement also says that the bug does not occur if you open a new tab after disabling the
toolbar for a particular window. In the statement, Google goes on to say that the bug
disappears if you restart your browser, but this does not quite make sense. If you are
interested in disabling Google toolbar for a particular window, you are not going to
close that window.
Source:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/27/google_toolbar_caught_transmitting_data_wh
en_disabled/
51. January 26, Help Net Security – (International) Cybercrime increasing faster than
company defenses. Cybercrime threats posed to targeted organizations are increasing
faster than many organizations can combat them. Moreover, a new survey suggests the
threat of cybercrime is heightened by current security models that are only minimally
effective against cyber criminals. More than 500 respondents, including business and
government executives, professionals and consultants, participated in the survey. The
survey is a cooperative effort of CSO, the U.S. Secret Service, Software Engineering
Institute CERT Program at Carnegie Mellon University and Deloitte’s Center for
Security & Privacy Solutions. The 2010 CyberSecurity Watch Survey uncovered a drop
in victims of cybercrimes (60 percent vs. 66 percent in 2007), however, the affected
organizations have experienced significantly more attacks than in previous years.
Between August 2008 and July 2009 more than one third (37 percent) of respondents
experienced an increase in cybercrimes compared to the previous year. Although the
number of incidents rose, the ramifications have not been as severe. Since 2007, when
the last cybercrime survey was conducted, the average monetary value of losses
resulting from cybercrimes declined by 10 percent. This can likely be attributed to an
increase in both IT security spending (42 percent) and corporate/physical security
spending (86 percent) over the past two years.
Source: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=8769
52. January 26, Help Net Security – (International) Devious ransom trojan takes data
hostage. Taking data hostage is not a new invention in the world of cybercrime but a
trojan currently infecting computers does it in a way that can leave the victim unaware
that he has been scammed. The CRO at F-Secure, says, “When the W32/DatCrypt
trojan infects a computer, it makes it seem as if some files, such as Microsoft Office
documents, video, music and image files have been “corrupted”, when the files have in
fact been encrypted by DatCrypt. Next the trojan creates what looks like an authentic
message from Windows, advising the user to download and execute the “recommended
file repair software” called Data Doctor 2010.” If this utility is downloaded and
executed, the user receives a message that it can “only repair one file in unregistered
version”. In order to repair — or more accurately, decrypt — more files, the user has to
buy the product for $89.95. After the money is paid, the software does return access to
the files.
Source: http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1208
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53. January 26, DarkReading – (International) New attack uses Internet Explorer’s own
features against it. A researcher at Black Hat DC, which runs from January 31 until
February 3, will demonstrate how an attacker can steal files from a victim’s machine by
abusing a combination of actual features in Internet Explorer. A security consultant
with Core Security Technologies says popular features in IE, such as URL Security
Zones and the browser’s file-sharing protocol, can together be abused to execute an
attack that results in the attacker being able to read all files on the victim’s machine.
The consultant plans to release proof-of-concept code for the attack next month after
Black Hat DC, and after Microsoft issues a security update for the attack, which affects
IE versions 6 and above, he says. The attack requires the user to click on a malicious
link. The group manager of Microsoft’s Trust The attack basically abuses the way
features in IE are designed, the consultant says, and it only works when a combination
of features are abused in the attacks. A single feature cannot be abused to wage the
attack, he says. It does not, however, allow the attacker to execute code remotely or to
control the victim’s machine.
Source:
http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerability_management/security/client/showArticle.jht
ml?articleID=222500167&subSection=End+user/client+security
54. January 26, DarkReading – (International) Report: More than 560,000 websites
infected in Q4. A total of 5.5 million Web pages on more than 560,000 Websites were
infected in the fourth quarter, according to new data, with evidence that attackers are
waging less noticeable exploits in order to remain under the radar. Dasient, which
compiled the data from its proprietary malware analysis tool that gathers information
on malware attacks on Websites, says the fourth-quarter 2009 numbers are actually a
slight decline from the third quarter, when it found more than 640,000 infected
Websites and 5.8 million infected Web pages. The decline, in part, could have to do
with smarter, more sophisticated attacks: Infections of newly compromised Websites of
10 or more pages on average hit about 24 percent of the pages on those sites, a jump of
19 percent from Q3. The infections basically spread to more pages on each site in the
fourth quarter, according to Dasient’s report. Another indication that attackers are
launching stealthier and more efficient attacks is in the number of programs used in the
attacks. The average number of programs loaded onto a victim’s machine from an
infected Website was 2.8, while two years ago attackers would typically send a dozen
or more malicious programs onto these machines.
Source:
http://www.darkreading.com/database_security/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?artic
leID=222500206&subSection=Attacks/breaches
55. January 26, V3.co.uk – (International) Hackers ran detailed reconnaissance on
Google employees. The hackers who infiltrated the computer systems of Google earlier
this month first carried out sophisticated reconnaissance and may even have posed as
friends of Google employees, according to a McAfee chief technology officer. In a
project dubbed Operation Aurora by the security giant, hackers are likely to have used
sophisticated social engineering techniques and advanced reconnaissance work to target
individuals at the companies who had access to sensitive data. “In this case we saw a
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lot more reconnaissance done upfront, which is a shift people may not have been aware
of,” the technology officer told V3.co.uk. This could involve compromising the social
networking accounts of employees’ friends, then sending them malicious links which
they are more likely to click on because they appear to come from a friend. The
technique is not new, but it would be the first time it has been detailed in such a highprofile attack.
Source: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2256804/hackers-carried-detailed
For another story, see item 13
Internet Alert Dashboard
To report cyber infrastructure incidents or to request information, please contact US-CERT at sos@us-cert.gov or
visit their Web site: http://www.us-cert.gov
Information on IT information sharing and analysis can be found at the IT ISAC (Information Sharing and
Analysis Center) Web site: https://www.it-isac.org
[Return to top]
Communications Sector
56. January 26, FierceTelecom – (Texas) Copper theft shuts down AT&T service in
Dallas. AT&T’s landline voice customers in Dallas, Texas were without phone service
on January 25 when thieves made off with 200 feet of copper cabling. Since the cable
theft was done in the very early morning, AT&T said only about 20 customers reported
they were without service in the afternoon of January 25, meaning that the outage was
not widespread. Stealing these particular copper cables, which AT&T estimates could
fetch no more than $2000 on the scrap metal market, came at a major risk because they
are high tension and are located right next to utility electric lines. There has been no
shortage of copper thieves being electrocuted when they mistakenly cut into an
adjacent utility electric wire. After a slight lull, a jump in copper prices has spurred on
a new wave of copper theft.
Source: http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/copper-theft-shuts-down-t-servicedallas/2010-01-26
57. January 26, Lake County News-Chronicle – (Minnesota) Damaged line cuts phone,
internet service in parts of Duluth, Lake and Cook counties. A steam pipe that
broke in a manhole in Duluth is believed to be the cause of damage to a fiber-optic line
that has cut phone and Internet service to thousands in Northeastern Minnesota. Qwest
Communications has determined that the damage occurred in Duluth north of Qwest’s
downtown location. “A steam pipe burst and the hot steam hit one of our fiber lines and
melted it,” said a spokeswoman for Qwest. “We now have people there that are
working trying to fix it as soon as we can.” Damage to the fiber-optic line took place
just before 11 a.m. and is affecting phone coverage for Qwest customers in Two
Harbors, Grand Marais, Silver Bay, and Finland, she said. As repairs were being made,
service also was disrupted in Duluth’s Lakeside neighborhood and a few other parts of
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town. Frontier Communications, which runs some of its traffic through the Qwest fiberoptic line, reported that about 4,000 of its customers in the same coverage areas also
have been affected. Cell phone service is affected along Highway 61 between Two
Harbors and Grand Marais, as well. Customers should be able to dial locally but will
have trouble making toll or emergency calls, the spokesman said.
Source:
http://www.twoharborsmn.com/event/article/id/158591/group/News/publisher_ID/36/
58. January 26, Defense Industry Daily – (National) U.S. Navy beefs up commercial
satellite capacity for ships. In the early weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S.
military satellite communications capacity was overwhelmed by the demand from U.S.
troops for satellite bandwidth to transmit voice and data communication. In response,
the U.S. military dramatically increased its use of commercial satellite capacity to meet
the explosion of demand. A study by the Satellite Industry Association found that 80
percent of all U.S. military satellite communication during the Iraq invasion was
carried on commercial satellites. The then-assistant secretary of defense for networks
and information integration estimated that the U.S. military purchased between $200
million and $300 million worth of commercial satellite services during the first year of
the war. Recognizing the military’s reliance on commercial satellites, the US Navy
undertook an effort, called the Commercial Broadband Satellite Program (CBSP), to
develop and deploy satellite communication terminals specifically designed to increase
the Navy’s commercial satellite communications capability. The Navy expects to
eventually deploy 200 of the high capacity terminals, which will be able to send data at
a speedy 21.4 Mbps as opposed to the current Inmarsat and Commercial Wideband
Satellite Program terminals, which can only send data at 4 Mbps.
Source: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/US-Navy-Beefs-Up-CommercialSatellite-Capacity-for-Ships-06128/
[Return to top]
Commercial Facilities Sector
59. January 26, Associated Press – (Alaska) Bomb donated to Kodiak museum was a
dud, after all. It now turns out that a World War II relic detonated earlier this month in
Kodiak, Alaske was a dud, after all. The 1,263-pound ‘Deck-Busting’ aerial bomb was
donated to the Kodiak Military History Museum, whose director determined it might
still contain explosives. An ordnance detail from Fort Richardson in Anchorage
traveled to Kodiak and examined the device. They determined the bomb still contained
Dunnite, a highly explosive material also known as “Explosive D.” However, Army
officials now say it was drywall and not Dunnite inside the relic. A spokesman told the
Kodiak Daily Mirror that the drywall had been soaked in some type of petroleum
product that had turned yellow and made it look suspicious.
Source: http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11883054
60. January 26, Fresno Bee – (California) Clovis police probe teen link to
explosives. Clovis police are asking residents near Keats and Magnolia avenues to
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watch for suspicious activity related to reports of teenagers using homemade
explosives. A Clovis police spokeswoman said residents in the area have reported
hearing large firecracker-like explosions coming from a nearby park. On Sunday about
6 p.m., police responded to a report of three high school-age boys exploding homemade
bombs. When police arrived they found pieces of two plastic bottles that had been
exploded, but no suspects. And Tuesday, the Clovis Fire Department discovered three
plastic “bottle bomb” devices at the same park. Two of them had exploded, the third
was intact but inert. The police spokewoman said bleach may be one of the ingredients
used in the devices. She warns that the homemade devices can be just as dangerous as
illegal fireworks.
Source: http://www.fresnobee.com/updates/story/1797810.html
[Return to top]
National Monuments and Icons Sector
Nothing to report
[Return to top]
Dams Sector
61. January 27, Athens Banner-Herald – (Georgia) Rains cause dam to burst; no
damage reported. Heavy rains caused a dam on an unnamed creek near the Atlanta
Highway-Epps Bridge Parkway interchange to burst recently, but no flooding or
damage was reported. Stormwater flooded the pond behind the dam during storms late
Sunday or early Monday, overtopping it and eventually causing it to crumble, said a
spokesman of the Georgia River Network. Water from the pond flowed harmlessly into
a nearby box culvert, said the director of the Athens-Clarke Transportation and Public
Works Department. The dam was decades old and probably not built to handle all of
the runoff from the now-heavily developed area around the pond, said a rural water
resource specialist for the Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission. The
commission owns hundreds of dams, but not that one, he said. The owner of the dam
had been warned several times in recent years that it appeared to be in poor condition,
according to the department director said. He said he could not recall who owned the
property. The state Environmental Protection Division (EPD) regulates privately owned
dams. EPD could require the dam to be rebuilt or simply allow the creek to continue
flowing freely, he said. About 2.5 inches of rain came down in Athens on Sunday and
Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
Source: http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/012710/new_555184617.shtml
62. January 27, Lake Wylie Pilot – (South Carolina) Dam gate opens as Lake Wylie
reaches flood level. After driving rains caused scattered flooding across the region
earlier this week, Duke Energy began releasing more water through the Lake Wylie
Dam on Monday to keep the lake below flood levels. Just before noon Tuesday, the
lake level measured 3 inches below what is considered full pond, a level that would
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cause flooding. A gate was opened 10 feet at the Lake Wylie Dam on Monday to
prevent water from spilling over the banks of Lake Wylie. A spokesman for Duke, said
Tuesday that Lake Wylie will probably remain at full pond for several days, but that
barring more rain, the lake is not expected to flood. “We’re trying to keep it right now
around full pond,” he said. “We would expect it to stay pretty much in that range.”
However, the company noted on its Web site that people living on creeks and streams
in low-lying areas should pay special attention to changing weather conditions. “It’s not
just the lakes. A lot of times, it’s creeks and tributaries that feed the lakes,” he said.
More severe conditions were found elsewhere. Six Duke-managed lakes, including
Wateree, Rhodhiss, and Lookout Shoals, maxed out beyond full pond. Rhodhiss and
Lookout Shoals are both located north of Lake Wylie, while Wateree is to the south.
Some lakes operated by Duke reached up to 3 feet beyond full pond Tuesday and 4 feet
Monday, officials said. Duke tries to keep its lakes at a target range. The target for
Lake Wylie is 3 feet below full pond to allow for significant rainfall such as the one
Sunday night on the northern reaches of the Catawba River. Creeks swelled throughout
the river basin as 2 to 4 inches of rain fell in areas where lake levels already were high,
he said.
Source: http://www.heraldonline.com/109/story/1897359.html?storylink=omni_popular
63. January 25, Agence France Presse – (International) Huge ‘iceberg’ threatens
Siberian dam: report. A Siberian dam where 75 people were killed in a disaster last
year is now threatened by a huge “iceberg” that has formed due to its stalled turbines
and winter conditions, a Russian daily said Monday. The ice mass, which weighs
25,000 ton and is 22 meters (72 feet) thick in some points, could lead to a new
catastrophe at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power plant, two scientists told
the Gazeta daily. However the company which operates the plant, state-owned
RusHydro, denied there was any risk to the dam straddling the powerful Yenisei River
in the Khakassia region of southern Siberia. Gazeta, which ran a photograph of the ice
mass along the bottom of the dam, said it had formed because RusHydro was allowing
water to flow out of the reservoir via a spillway which had never before been used in
winter. The August 17, 2009 accident damaged the turbines through which the water
normally passes, forcing the dam operator to use the spillway to ease pressure on the
dam. A large cloud of mist thrown up from the spillway has been freezing and turning
into ice flakes that fall on the roofs of various structures at the bottom of the dam,
building up into a thick mass, Gazeta said. The ice could cause parts of the power plant
to collapse said a scientist quoted by the Gazeta. RusHydro said it was monitoring the
situation and dismissed the possibility of another disaster at the dam. A Russian
government investigation concluded that the August disaster was caused by a technical
fault in one of the plant’s turbines and blamed senior officials, including some at
RusHydro, for failing to prevent the disaster.
Source:
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Huge_iceberg_threatens_Siberian_dam_report_999.
html
[Return to top]
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DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report Contact Information
About the reports - The DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report is a daily [Monday through Friday]
summary of open-source published information concerning significant critical infrastructure issues. The DHS Daily
Open Source Infrastructure Report is archived for ten days on the Department of Homeland Security Web site:
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their Web page at www.us-cert.gov.
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